Baruch Spinoza as a Jewish Thinker

Abstract

Despite being born Jewish, Baruch Spinoza has long been shunned from the canon of Jewish thought. The Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated him. Today, the secular world too refuses to acknowledge him as a Jewish thinker. Spinoza is divorced from his context. Recovering the Spinoza's context requires showing that he can still be considered a Jewish thinker. This can be done based on three criteria: his view on God, his perspective on scripture, and his position on the nature of the soul.